Cacophony
by Panda musume
Summary: "There is a scream inside her soul, a bird's calling that reaches the air but never the person she wants to reach the most." - In the face of death and despair and chance, there is only the determined eyes of a girl in a coward's body. Revision: /Killua/OC/Gon/OT3 pairing/
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: For convenience's sake I'll be changing the structure of my A/N's, which also means most of my A/N's will be at the end of a chapter unless there's a particularly important matter I want to talk about.**

 **Disclaimer: The only thing I own is my OC. Everything else belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi-sensei.**

 **-x-**

Cacophony

Prologue: Softly Say Goodbye

.

.

.

It's the grave sitting in the corner of a shit-sprayed city, behind the garbage dump and by the old, abandoned building.

The silence beyond the rain is the monster that hums in her ears. Her hands strain against the ground, clutching at some imaginary piece of stardust that mama has always told her to find, but no matter how far or deep she searches all she grasps is broken flower stems and dainty shards of glass. They cut and nip at her hands until she bleeds red and feels pain, but still. It's not right - it doesn't feel _right_. She is cold and wet and tired and she feels hollow emptiness swallowing her whole and it doesn't. Feel. Right.

The soil is drenched with acid rain and wilted flowers and tears, and deep down, a few feet under the makeshift dirt gathered by four year old hands, is mama. Mama, who sleeps eternally with her arms and legs sprawled open, a welcome invitation to wanting men and greedy eyes and the culmination of loneliness and desperation.

Inari's never minded that. Mama shouted and swung and cursed as if her life depended on it, Mama whipped her hands across her face like there was nothing to lose and drank like she was trying to forget, and Mama cried and begged and bared her legs for money to trickle onto her thighs and Inari remembers.

 _"Ina-chan! Look - look, bread."_

It's a stale memory pieced together by a child's hope and sweet disillusionment, stitched into a messy patchwork blanket of safety. It's love and hate and loneliness all combined in one, and Inari Natsume is never more sure of anything else than she is of mama, because mama loved and hated and despaired and loved and loved and loved-

But it's not her that she really wants. Inari knows because she's a product of it. She mentions 'him' on drunken nights when she's filled to the brim. There are delusional giggles and sunken in eyes, butterflies in the stomach and _"oh, he had brown eyes and promised to take me away"_. Her mother is blissfully young while the bottle stays half full, lazy smiles trailing lines down Inari's face because _"you have his eyes, darling."_ It ends with mournful glances towards the lamplight of stars illuminating the sky, starry-eyed and filled with wanderlust and love. It dies with hateful word, broken bottles and severed dreams and " _IhateyouIloveyouIhateIloveII_ - _I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry_ -"

Inari stares at the place where dreams end, eyes glazing over as she looks at the dirt mound, old with azian corruption and the stench of rot and piss, and realizes that the acid rain is opening up the lines on her arms and legs. It flows onto her, traces the topography of her skin before dripping down her fingertips, outlining the cracks and crevices where bone meets bone and skin meets muscle. The marks-the fresh ones- will scar, like any other reminder from mama has.

 _"If you find him for me, bring him back, will you?"_

Inari Natsume levels her gaze at the grave, fingers cold and eyes burning, burning hot. Mama is gone, and the only thing she stares at is a body below the ground, worn and torn by the disillusionment of a man who gave her hope and promise and left when she gave him Inari.

(And mama loved and loved and loved and loved-)

Inari raises her foot and grits her teeth, eyes filling with hot tears and broken nostalgia and the remnants of the emptiness threatening to swallow her whole if she doesn't do something. Her leg whips hard and her foot slams into the ground and she scatters dirt and flower petals and ravages the soil and screams _"_ _ **Mama**_ _, I was here this whole time."_

When she retracts her foot Inari's eyes are wet, and bright - burning, burning bright, heart pounding and eyes unwavering and she is alive-

She leaves with dry eyes and a stone heart and tells herself that love was not this. Mama loved her like a broken fragment of a dream she's been stuck in. She loved the children she conjured up as much as she loved the idea of the man she shared her soul with, and Mama was not love.

Mama was pitiful.

 **-x-  
**  
 **A/N: To be honest I'm really not satisfied with the prologue. I planned to make this a part of chapter one, where I actually add some nice 5k word bulk in there instead of giving you guys this, but eh.**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Leave a review if you have any constructive criticism. Oh, and also, if you guys know of any good HxH fanfics I would love to read them! HxH has sucked me into its fandom and now I can't get out. Send help.**

 **Til next time~**


	2. Chapter 2

**Edited 4-14-2017**

 **A/N: Please stick around and read the author's notes at the end of the chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: The only thing that belongs to me are my OCs. Everything else belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi-sensei.**

-x-

Cacophony

Ch. 1: And Then

.

.

.  
-x-  
 **Part One**  
-x-  
This is not new.

The ground against her bare feet is slick with mud and blood and vomit. It squelches underneath her, wraps her feet with the cracked bones of ghosts and the hollow sounds of laughter. She follows a script, waits until it's time to cut to the next scene as dirt seeps into her skin.

Inari watches as blood seeps out from every crack lining her body like water tricking through old stones. It dyes the bones crimson and only makes them want more from her, as if she's entitled to giving them everything she has.

When she tries to sob she can't muster a scream, much less a gasp. (Again, this is not new).

 _"Ina-chan, Ina-chan!"  
_  
First her fingernails peel themselves off. They fall slowly into the dirt-stained hands of bodies swallowing her whole. She tries to sob again, mouth open wide - and there is a scream inside her soul, a bird's calling that reaches the air but never the person she wants to reach the most. But then there are hands that cover her mouth, leaving burns trails as they grasp onto her waist and arms and neck, dead things twining around her skin and searching as if they've lost something.

(Inari wonders the same thing too. If they suck her dry will she find what she wants?)

The air around her crashes and weaves, falls apart then pushes back together like some sort of out of tune symphony. People writhe and groan and screech underneath her, and then the bones now have muscle then skin then names, and all of their auras mix, converge together and create something terrifyingly monstrous, some scratching, grating screech compressed in her ears and swallowing her whole.

(She stops screaming.)

She singles one out from the crowd, a sound she's always heard, a sound louder than anguish and just as heartbreakingly quiet. Hate and grief and just a little bit of guilt flow into her ears, but most of all it's enraged. It's hungry - lonely.

 _"Kill me, someone. Ina-chan..."_

The mud underneath her feet rumbles. Mama rolls around in her grave, cum-stained legs cut open with gravel.

Mama is hungry - _lonely_.

 _"It's cold in here, Ina-chan."_

Inari presses her hands into her eyes and grits her teeth.

-x-

" _Shut up_ ," she pleads.

-x-  
Her eyes shoot open.

Inari wakes up, looks over the broken, rust-stained rooftop she's perched upon and sees the sun peeking out from the horizon. She pretends that the air is not thick and the wetness on her face is not tears, and drowns herself in the noise of the crowd beyond the roof.

With a vulture's eye that's seen none of the majesty in the world, Inari watches.

Inari listens.

-x-

 _"Someday-someday we'll leave. He'll come back for us. I promise. We'll make due until then."_

Inari feels the curve of her mother's emaciated leg. She watches as the dry skin flakes off to reveal skinned knees stained with the cum of other men. Her mother's eyes burn bright and wet, mouth chapped and parted open.

 _"We'll be there to welcome him home."_

-x-

 _"Okay."_

-x-  
She can single out sounds from killing intent.

She doesn't give much thought to it. Inari is four. She is alone and she is hungry, and the reason she is alive is because of it. That should be enough.

Should be. But it is not.

-x-

It's instinctual at first, small instances suddenly sprung from the ground. Sounds that coalesce and split apart along with the pressure that hits her with the weight of boulders. Inari thinks it's something that comes with being born. Something that's been just as normal as breathing until mama screams and shouts about him and his eyes when she tries to ask her _Mama what's wrong with me_.

When mama wasn't screaming Inari heard something else. Quiet wails; weak, sharp little echoes interspersed with a lover's call and a mother's coo, prodding against her mind and telling her to stay. It starts as an extension of her body, something that helps Inari hide herself. Now, it's different.

Now, the rattling of feet on pavement sound like bones being crunched on gravel.

The most defined sounds, the most refined and deadly ones, are near perfect. They flow around, zigzag and weave in varying intensities and there's a sudden pressure in her body that lurches.

It hurts.

Some nights it hurts to sleep, and some nights she remembers mama's cheap and broken bottles tearing her apart. The sound shrieks in her body like a lonely lover, but Inari is almost glad for something familiar to rake signs across her arms and legs. It beats the strange energy pulsating inside her body, always there and never leaving, a volcano long past its rupture as it sends vibrations through muscle and bone and makes gravity feel ten times denser.

 _"You should have never been born."_

Mama sounds like broken glass sinking into someone's feet, cutting away and deafening her ears.

 _"I don't want to die...Ina-chan."  
_  
A year has passed since she buried her. It's hard to forget someone who's whored herself out to keep the both of them alive. Inari remembers the silence left behind, the hollowness of empty smiles and her voice, calling out a stranger with eyes like hers and a promise to come home.

 _Mama was pitiful.  
_  
She grits her teeth and resolves to never fall in love.

(In the end she never asked for her own daughter to be by her side.)

Mama was lonely.

 _Well_ , she thinks. _So was I._

-x-

One year later and it hits her harder than hunger.

The area in Azia is surrounded with strange things that almost make Inari keel over. She's gotten much better at hiding - when she passes by someone they don't even bother look up. The years have defined her ears, the insides of her body, and have only intensified the pressure bottled up inside herself. Her ears hurt, her chest hurts, her legsarmsfeethands-she can't find a word that's not associated with pain to describe it. It's a slew of rumbling vibrations and pressurized frequencies that compresses her heart and leaves her gasping for air.

It's also something that makes her want to double over and die.

(But, Inari resolves, she won't.)

She'll fucking live.

-x-  
Shuka is the name of this shit-stained city forgotten by the world, and there is a building just two miles down from mama's grave.

Inari's back is slick with sweat and pressed up against the wall of a brothel, rusting knife in one hand and an apple core in the other as she looks two miles down to the building near mama's grave. Her body hurts, the things pent up inside unwilling to release. She's had this uncomfortable, tugging-at-her-tongue feeling that won't go away whenever she looks at this place. It's filled with yūjo and kagema willing to offer their services in exchange for golden coins. They have braids and beads decorating their heads, bells against their necks and smiles on their lips. Every brothel has its trademark to mark their territory - like the one seven blocks down in the one where mama used to work in. They wear ribbons and sashes and speak in poetics. That's normal. _This one_ should be normal.

It is anything but normal.

While there is noise filling into her ears, from time to time Inari hears disconnected moments of silence. The kind that makes her skin turn cold and her breath go ragged. The kind that has instinct telling her to never walk past it on the street. The kind that reminds her just who is the kitten waiting to be slaughtered.

The thing is though, what she hears - what she feels is barely noticeable, just a sliver of possibility. The brothel is just as dilapidated and shaky as the rows of other houses presiding it, and Inari's even seen some in better condition.

(But the thing is.)

Past the rows of shaky staircases, no one with anything refined traverses into there with intents ready to monopolize. What's even stranger here are the eyes of the staff members.

Her eyes drag themselves towards the open windowpanes and terraces spiraling all around the outside interior. There are women draped over them, eyes filled with lustrous intent and wicked smiles, hungry and ready to devour; men by the doorways, clothes billowing around their legs and burning their lungs with opium (with the amount of smoke in the air, Inari wonders how they would seem so unaffected).

(But the thing is-)

There are always people watching.

And while at varying frequencies, they all sound sharp as knives, ready to pierce through anything, the deadliest congregation of dirty royalty residing with the scum of Shuka.

(And there are always people watching.)

Inari hates the place, feels as if she's being probed by every eye that's not on her even though she's hiding. She's always been well at hiding her presence, always managed to run away from the chasers and the men who want women like mama.

She recognizes this feeling though. She won't take her chances, but she's desperately compelled to come back, no matter how terrifying this place is.

It feels a little too much like the pressure in her body.

-x-  
It gets worse.

It comes in short bursts, leaving her breathless and unassuming before she even registers it.

It also hurts and makes her cry for mama until she berates herself and says _"you fucking idiot stop it mama'snothereanymore-"_

You made sure of it.

It's not enough to cripple her ability to kick or bite or scratch or punch. She won't let it get in between her and the boys with the bread in between their fingers. If she's not strong then she has to be fast. If she's not fast then she's dead. If she's not strong or fast or alive then she'll never have a change at leaving this place.

"Gimme the bread," the boy rasps, gripping at the bone with skin covering his shoulder. His hair is a mess of dirt and what looks to be a muddy black. Blood oozes and drips to the ground as he looks towards Inari, knife in hand and bread in the other and the same hollowed out eyes, wild and terrified. It's a typical situation. She's fought boys larger than her, honed into just where the mass of intentions are coming from, slipped a knife through their ribs and eyes and arms before they could grab her. Before she could look into their eyes and run.

This boy is most definitely younger than her. She can see the curves of his ribs through the indentations his skin. She can see lines that are from fighting and stealing and living. She can see the story that connects them together and the bread in her hands that breaks them apart.

She can see how he sounds different from the others. The crackling of a small fire. A glowing firefly trying to reach home. The first boy in a while to notice her passing him by.

Something flares, "I'm sorry," she says suddenly through the pressure. In the way mama had taught her. It tumbles awkwardly from her tongue, different from when she said it more out of concern for her own life than concern for someone else. The notion even surprises herself - but maybe it's because he's the one that saw her walking right past him.

 _"I'm sorry! Mama - " Please don't hit me._

 _"I'm sorry, Ina-chan."_

 _Liar.  
_  
The boy growls (because no one will listen if you scream) and lunges towards her, wiry fingers curling around her wrist before she can register.

 _Mama. Quiet then loud and screaming. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you-"_

She doesn't know why she freezes, doesn't know why she's wavering now of all times, but in Shuka every moment matters. The boy sees an opening. He spits at her face and reaches for the more dangerous object in her hand. Inari's mind scrambles as she backs up, instinct presiding over panic as she frantically wipes away the spit with her arm and feels him grasp her shirt. She bends towards his momentum, wincing as his fist buries itself in her sack of a stomach and slaps the bread away from her hand. It leaves her breathless but for some reason her insides don't move even though her body is about to fall down and _this is not the time to be thinking about this._

But Inari knows the ending to this story. Inari has the knife. Inari still has the bread. Inari has the age and the speed and the size.

For once, she knows she'll win.

It's anticlimactic. Inari bends towards the side, silently tower over the boy who missteps when she sticks a leg out and kicks the back of his knees hard. She ignores the blossoming pain against her head ( _andarmsandlegsandtorsoandstopthinkingstopthinking-_ ) and stabs through the indentation of the boy's lower ribs. The slide of her knife through the crevice of papery skin is easier than breathing nowadays, but for some reason the pressure intensifies all of a sudden. It's almost unbearable and Inari doesn't know why but she wants to buckle over and die.

The boy younger than her screams like a broken animal, quiet and whimpering and writhing on the floor, body crumpling like his body doesn't have bones. _Run_ , her instincts tell her. _Get the fuck away before anyone else comes_.

But then the pressure spikes and Inari can't think of much at all. She gasps, allows herself to drop to the ground.

 _How old is he_ , she thinks through the haze, insides seizing up and throat constricting. _He can't be older than four.  
_  
Oh.

She opens her eyes when she realizes she's squeezing them shut. The boy is still alive. He's bleeding. He's writhing. He'll die. But he's still alive.

Her feet start moving, her hands start grabbing. Inari slumps over next to the boy and pushes his hair back the way mama had. Ignores the pain. "What's your name," she chokes out, breathless and watery.

The boy looks at her, fiery rage dimming away, dark eyes swirling into silent, cold terror. " _Stay away from me"_ he chokes out pathetically, arms wildly grasping at the dirt and then to the hole in his side with the knife plunged into it. Blood spews from his mouth as his fists try to ward away her arms like she's the monster crawling underneath his bed. "Get away!"

Inari's arms reach for him, grasps him by his clothes like mama used to as he struggles and spasms and cries and cries and cries. He leaves marks on her arms and shoulders and face, small curves that ooze red and makes her tighten her hold on him. Small things that make them both forget about the knife and the bread.

"Don' wanna. . .," he babbles deliriously, tears smearing his face and watering the ground. "Don' let me die." Inari can hear the wet choke of his lungs and the sound of his still-beating heart.

"What's your name," she says desperately, grasping his hand, in between not knowing what to do and rubbing it so he can feel her warmth. What do I do, she asks desperately. What do you want me to do?

He grips back weakly, opens his mouth, eyes dulled out and full of pain. Inari winces (why is she hesitating like this?). Inari presses her ear against his head and feels the breath of a dead thing on the ground, hot and shallow, dimming edges of ash being doused by blood.

She watches as his breaths grow shallow, hears the disjointed sound of his rattling inhales and his long-been-broken-heart. Then it's wispy. A little while longer, something goes out. His sound disappears from this hollowed out alleyway and _he's dead now_ , her brain says, but Inari's arms are already around his shoulders and shaking him hard, telling him to _wake up, wake up, wake up_. She still presses her hands against him, tries to return some color before she hisses in frustration and throws her head into her hands, gripping her hairs by the roots until it hurts too much and the silence swallows her whole.

"I'm sorry." She doesn't know why she says this. The other boys she'd fought were just the same as him. Fighting, living, dying on the streets -

"I'm sorry," she shudder, unsure. _What am I saying?_ _Stop it. Run._ "I'm sorry."

 _She walks through the crowds of hunger-panged stomachs and hollowed out eyes, bread in her pockets and knife in her hand. There is a shift in the air when she ducks into an alleyway, a sound behind her that tells her body to move to the left._

 _When she turns around her ear is bleeding, and the owner of the rock is a skinny boy with desperate eyes._

 _How did he notice -_

" _Give me the fucking bread."_

 _He noticed._

(Mama, what am I doing?)

There is wetness on her cheeks as she presses his hand against hers. Instinct takes over. This buzz of the firefly is stamped out by the overcrowd. Inari closes her eyes, tries to feel for something that's not there anymore. Her chest hurts and her legs feel like stone and she waits for the crushing guilt, the agony and fear and _anything but this_ \- but it never comes. The pressure saps it out in one long string of pain. Her body is numb and heavy and exhausted, and Inari is suddenly so, so tired.

And then, something spreads out within her body. The familiar sensation of gravity tipping against her makes her seize and convulse and grit her teeth.

" _No, no, no, no, no-_ ," she spits out before her head falls against the boy's stomach and the world tilts on its axis. She hears the sickening squelch of blood and intestines sliding around and resists the urge to gag. Bright lights in her vision and the scent of vomit and urine and metal collide, but the mind breaking, searing pressure pounds through her and makes her heart race miles per minute.

It's too loud all of a sudden. Her mind processes every sound filtering through her head and it _hurtsithurtsithurtsmamapleasehelpme-_

( _Stopstopstopstop-_ )

The pain takes the rest of her senses away except the things filtering through her ears, which seem to accelerate, focus and spin. She can hear the squelch of her insides, the thumping of feet in the outside world and the cries of beggars who will never get their food and she wants them to stop. Fucking. Talking.

Inari doesn't know what to do. It's never been this bad before, never made her feel like her body was ready to be ripped apart and cut and stabbed. She can't make a noise. Holy fucking shit she can't make a noise. It's like something's sitting on every single part of herself, stopping her from screaming and crying and thrashing around.

Something wet slips out from her eyes and ears and nose. It's not tears. It tastes funny, and Inari is terrified.

She grips onto the boy, holds him like she holds bread against her chest, ignores the knife in his lungs and focuses on his glassy eyes. Breathe, breathe, breathe, _breathe_ , ( _what's your name?_ ) Inari. Breathe.

And then something else happens.

"Ho-oh, not in the best of conditions, but I'm sure we can manage."

Her senses go into overdrive and everything is so much worse from there. Her eyes are wide and her blood turns to ice and the hairs on her arms stand stiff. There is this overly immense power, this thing that wafts into the air and makes her want to die, engulfing her in a sound that says it can kill her hundreds of times over.

She can't bring her head up to greet this nasally, stuffy, yet cutting voice. She can't bring herself to stop trembling, much less move. Her senses are telling her to _getthefuckawaygogogo-_ From the way the pressure changes, the voice knows that too. "What - what…. are you?" Inari chokes out, tasting the copper of blood and bile.

Inari imagines the person quirking their lips up, smiling like the manipulator of a game. She feels a deadly melody, soothing yet terrifying and ready to drown her painfully, the beginnings and ending of a storm. It's painfully familiar, almost at the tip of her tongue. When that thought finally registers Inari's ears are clogged and her vision tunnels and her mind is screaming _fuckfuckfuck_.

"So you're the brat that's been sneaking around my brothel, eh? Not bad at all," is the last thing she hears before the sound amplifies and the pressure sends her to the deepest parts of unconsciousness.

She almost hopes she doesn't wake up.

-x-  
 **Part Two**  
-x-

Here's the thing.

"-ie if I don't do this."

 _What._

"The fact that this kid's probably like, six, doesn't bother you?"

 _What the fuck?_

"It encourages me. The little girl's more interesting than you think."

Inari's eyes crack open and she's met by a head splitting, pounding sensation inside her brain.

"And if she dies?"

"Then she dies. But right now, I want to give her a chance.."

". . .If you say so. Ah, she's awake. Stand back, Obi."

Something wet trickles down her face. Inari wonders at it for a moment before hazy memories of a nasally voice and a dead boy emerge, and suddenly the past registers itself. Only, when Inari tells her body to fucking move in the face of overwhelming fear and anxiety, it won't. Inari can't get up. Her arms, legs, feet, hands, whole-entire-body feels papery thin with something monstrous underneath, waiting any moment now to explode.

"Sobo-sama, where exactly are we?"

"Safe," the nasally voice chippers, "one of our clients owes us a favor. Don't worry. The place is renowned for hosting nen users here. Her aura won't give us away once I release it."

Her eyes go wide as she registers three people, attempts to scream from the pain and demand where she is but can't because her vocal chords are ready to burst and _whereamIwhereamIwhatamIdoinghere_ , and then -

"No hard feelings, kid," the old woman smiles, the lines around her eyes crinkling. Inari's eyes slide to her face and almost disbelieves herself at the old woman's youth despite her nasally voice.

"I would have felt more offended if you hadn't offered the double-sided compliment," the old woman says, hands raised and glowing, eyes lined with concentration and just a little bit of something else. "You'd better stay awake for this one."

What comes after that precedes unbearable. It evolves into silent screams and a woman next to her holding her hand and telling her to stay awake unless she wants to die. Inari blindly follows along as she gazes in surprise and fear and wonder at the haze of strange lights dancing around her body. Her brain shouts at instinct takes over and allows these people to lead her through, even though she doesn't really know what she's doing.

This is what death must feel like, she thinks, bright lights exiting her body.

She breathes.

-x-

"That's not so far-fetched, girl."

Her name is Inari Natsume. The little birdies keeping tabs on the street say she's an orphan who's lost her mother and has been abandoned by her father. She's fast, but not the fastest.

More importantly, she has no presence.

Terada Mikado usually doesn't do this, hasn't brought someone in for the longest time - hasn't planned on bringing anyone in past Obi-kun. Nen is - the _brothel_ is a tricky business. But she knows what she's doing here. She's been doing it for a long, long time, and she knows a golden opportunity when she sees one. Girl shows promise just beyond surviving and scavenging and begging. Sturdy - no, gutsy and cynical. She'll even squint and pretend to see some fucking common sense going around. All in all, she's done well for the common emaciated, starving brat the past two years. There's conviction too, even though the girl's made some majorly stupid decisions. Well, child plus coping mechanisms equals catastrophe. Nothing she can't handle.

"What the-" Azuma's cut off by the burst of aura coming from this little girl, dark hair billowing against her sides as she tries to keep her awake.

Ah. The girl's managed to block off her aura nodes for the past how many years? "Imagine yourself floating around. Grasp it. Move it like you would move a limb."

Inari's brow is knitted with sweat and blood, eyes wide and lips pursing to keep them from trembling, but through the haze of panic she seems to be in between a _yes I get it but I don't know how to do it._ Paranoid, she files away. But the thick fog of nen slowly takes shape, moving and swirling against her sides, small sections unstable and dissipating into the air. Ho-oh, not bad, eh?

Azuma sighs. Her protege looks on, mouth pulled into a frown.

The girl looks to her confusedly, unsure of what to do, eyes wide as her hands hesitate to grasp it. Terada Mikado would laugh at the display, would correct her childish impulse if the situation wasn't so dire.

But, "Enshroud it around you. Don't try to pull it back in unless you want a repeat of what just happened. Good - hold it so it doesn't leave," at the widening of the girl's eyes she tacks on a "Don't worry, girl, I've made it so won't have to experience that ever again." _Unless some form of trauma resurfaces,_ she thinks wryly. But, through minutes of coaxing and a rendition done using Azuma's hand, Terada Mikado watches as the mist folds together in an almost protective embrace over the girl. She can see how something leaves her body and makes her relax into the futon she's in. She doesn't relax completely though. Good.

With Azuma dropping her hand, Inari Natsume sets her wary eyes on her, hands moving back as if attempting to grasp a weapon. (-Obi shifts his stance, shifts the side of his blade towards her direction-) "Where 'm I," she gasps through a mouthful of blood (Mm, right, gotta fix that too). _Who're you_ , she accuses, eyes narrowed and terrified.

Terada Mikado looks back into those tired, hollowed out child eyes and makes her decision.

She's about to reply until the girl sways, doubles over and out of consciousness.

Terada Mikado sighs. _Always at the best part._

-x-

The girl looks like a dead thing laying in the futon.

"She...coated her organs with nen?" His eyes burn as he maintains gyo. He doesn't last much longer though when Oiran holds up a hand for him to stop. Obi bites his lip and keeps his face at an impasse, crushes his fingers into his fists and swallows down frustration.

"Yep," Oiran says, hands hovering over the girl. What did Sobo-sama say her name was - Inaba? Binari? "Pretty solid work there, except that she didn't protect her upper half as much as she did with her lower. Too many emotions all at once, to simplify."

Sobo-sama sighs, "The brat has some ridiculously large aura, and she's been blocking off their exitways for months, most likely years."

"How do you think that happened? She's overly sensitive to her surroundings." Oiran turns to look at him, gauging him with a raised eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"Zetsu?" he offers with a shrug, looks at the girl and her emaciated body. There's an unnerving buzz in his body, something he's felt when he looks at children with parents and people who buy their bread. Imagine his shock when a girl three years his junior releases nen reserves larger than him.

Sobo-sama nods, "To the extreme. She's been subconsciously using it so much up to the point where her body forgot how to naturally regulate her nen."

Obi watches as Oiran and Sobo-sama hover over the girl with impassive eyes. He feels for his own nen, remembers the day where he managed a hatsu.

He looks at her, pale-faced and ragged like the day he was found. Scars trailing down her arms and legs but never her face.

 _Doors sliding open, open open - two bodies on the floor and blood on the carpet and girl standing in the middle, laughing and crying and then gone._

She's nothing like Manaka.

-x-

She wakes up to the bittersweet smell of herbal medicines and the closest thing that looks like a home.

 _Where. . .am I?_ Her eyes scour the room, analyzing the her surroundings. Something feels off. Something's missing. Something smells. . .nice? Inari glances down to her body, feels her breath catch when she realizes someone's changed her clothes, washed the coppery smell of blood off her face and bandaged parts of her bruising body. She cranes her head to the right, mind slowing and cogs turning when her eyes land on three individuals leaning against the doorframe, eyes widening as snapshots of flashing lights and nasally voices and a dead boy filter through, and then what else -

-She can breathe properly -

The old woman quirks her lips up, mouth pressed against a dark kiseru. "Took longer than I thought for you to wake up. Though I'd have to praise you for maintaining your nen while sleeping."

-The crest of high notes and the thunderous roaring of storms and _getthefuckaway_ -

"Obi."

She feels the sharp twist in the air, the soft pulling of strings as the boy-named-Obi slowly pulls his hand back from her neck, face impassive and golden eyes cold. Her sight stops tunnelling and her back is ramrod straight, breath shallow and eyes narrowed as she registers the sharpened piece of a glass vase in her hand. Behind her are the rest of the shards, scattered against a wooden platform.

Inari can hear herself swallowing, slowly turning her eyes towards the old woman and the woman sitting next to her. They're both unaffected, sound frequencies eclipsing together into something deadly (and does she imagine it or does the old woman's lips quirk up?). Something in her mind is sensible enough to make her ask a "Who are you" and "What do you want from me".

The younger woman and the boy turn towards her. The old woman's gaze rakes across Inari's figure, brown eyes holding her stare as the buzz of sound grows louder, lighter.

"Most of them call me Sobo-sama - but that hardly matters," she says flippantly, eyes playful, then quickly transcending into something Inari can't quite place. "I'll make this clear. I'm not going to hurt you."

Inari purses her lips, shoulders tense. She hears the boom of thunder echoing in her ears, numbly feels for the terror that precedes trust and instead finds a shriveled up sense of resignation.

"I want you to join my family."

 _Wait, what_. Inari's bones collapse from underneath her, shoulders slumping and mouth agape, glass shard slipping from her hand. Her mind doesn't process anything past "Sobo-sama's" words and the beating of her heart.

 _What_.

She searches for words, tries to navigate through a list of responses that don't answer the question. Somewhere far off the young woman looks a bit exasperated, lips pulling into a whisper of "not again."

"Close your mouth," Sobo-sama says, lazy smile deeply contrasting the resigned sigh of the younger woman and the frown on the boy.

"What - " she sputters, eyes looking at the ground. _No, fix that, look into their eyes._

Sobo-sama's smile widens.

 _Think, Inari. Think._ She asks impulsively, warily, "What do - "

"If you join I'll tell you. "

That doesn't answer any of her questions, so " _Why_ ," Inari settles for dumbfoundedly, fight gone. She knows she looks like an idiot, mouth open and eyes wide. Nothing like these people, honed and sharp as knives. But the thing is. . .

" _We'll be there to welcome him home."_

"We know your father left you," the old woman adds conversationally.

Inari jerks her head up. Something unsure swells up inside of her and her reason comes back with revenge. _Get yourself together_. _They want you for something. No one helps you without a price._ Her mouth curls up into a snarl, fingers twitching towards the ground.

"Don't bother," she stiffens at the old woman's words. "There's nothing we can do about that information, unless you want to find him - "

" _No_ \- "

"Then listen closely, Inari Natsume." The old woman looks at her, intrigue and playfulness gone. The room stills. The silence buzzes and the thunderous crash of storms is honed until it is lost. "I want to create a family capable of surviving anything that comes their way with the work we do. I want a family that won't betray each other."

This isn't a joke she can laugh at. _What is she saying -_

"I'm forcing your hand," she responds, watching as Inari realizes she spoke aloud. "I saved you for a reason, and I'm offering you the best possible option at a life right now." She pauses, holds her gaze; they're different from the ones on the street. Different from the men who want to sell her body, different from the men who wanted women like mama. (And they're. . .red?) "I want to develop your potential - don't get me wrong, girl. I won't treat you like a tool. My home isn't a place where I'll sell you off or throw away your life meaninglessly. I don't plan on limiting you. But if you entrust yourself to us, I can promise a great deal of safety you've never had."

Inari subconsciously holds her hand against her sack of a stomach, feels the emptiness and remembers the stale bread. Is it still with the boy? Is his body still there, rotting away with the knife in between his ribs.

The old woman grabs her hand, wrenches her from everything she's run away from, bright scarlet eyes boring deep into hers. "Own up to yourself. I can promise you that you will make something out of your life instead of spending years here trying to get out."

Inari pauses. Her eyes don't recognize the sting of being open for so long. Her heart is racing and her head is pounding, and she remembers mama and graves and a promise to leave. She remembers the boy and the bread that broke them apart and pressurized frequencies that makes gravity ten times denser and her voice, too small to scream. She doesn't have a family, doesn't have anything to offer.

"We know," the young woman says, hand upon the boy's shoulder and apathetic eyes staring down at Inari. "We won't lie."

" _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you - "_

 _"Someday-someday we'll leave. He'll come back for us. I promise. We'll make due until then."_

 _She'll fucking live._

Inari's breath catches inside her throat. Her head is covered by her hair and caked in dirt in comparison to the room. When she looks up, she sees no wrinkled hand splayed atop hers, no act of pity that indicates she was saved on just a whim and nothing more.

 _It hurtsithurtsithurtsmamapleasehelpme-_

She narrows her eyes, feels them burn. Not in front of them. She knows their building is a pretense to something greater, their jobs more sinister and lives more layered and secret. But beneath it all is something that connects them, something this old woman is so assured of through the wear of her age and the unwavering confidence in her eye.

" _We'll be there to welcome him home."_

She's tired of remembering those words.

What comes after is unrecognizable and insignificant, something unregrettably satisfying. It feels heavy with purpose and smooth on her tongue, curiosity and anxiety and a glimmer of hope prevailing above the numbness and mama and everyone she's fought. _Finally_ , she thinks. Although a bit lopsided and out of the pretense of predetermined reason rather than chance, she has something to grasp onto. Because she'll live. Because it's not the first time she's had to lower herself to the wills of others.

It spills from her mouth.

" _Don' wanna die."_

"Help me."

-x-

Azuma watches as the girl utters a silent plea.

" _Help me."_

Only, it is not a plea. It is anything but that. There is no pity, no tears or dramatized emotions in her voice. She asks for something else. Something that has nothing to do with protection. Something she most likely hasn't found an answer to yet.

There is only unsurety and hesitation in the face of chance, and the girl's determined eyes in a coward's body.

-x-

 **A/N: A whopping 18 pages. Holy fucking shit.**

 **Anyways -**

 **As you guys may have already figured out from that 3-month-long wait, updates will be devastatingly slow - at least until school's over and summer's here. I've been typing about 200 words per day on my phone in order to get some work done...but...**

 **But ! Fear not ! While I do make a lot of lofty promises about continuing fanfics, I'm especially invested in writing this fic to the end. I can feel it. It's in my blood. I've made characterisation notes, a storyline set-up for the next ten chapters, and passed out doodling Inari-chan when I'm supposed to be studying for AP classes but :'))))now you know Panda-sama isn't a completely unreliable author.**

 **I've also taken these past months to think what I really wanted to do with this story. Initially when writing the prologue, Cacophony was just a half-baked idea that I wanted to make between Inari and Killua before it decided to explode into its own galaxy. Therefore, I want to make some things clear.**

 **I've changed the summary in order to fit the storyline I'm planning out. Inari isn't just some facilitated medium for a fan girl's dream of being with Killua (well, in certain,** _ **many** _**aspects she is and will be in later chapters). As I developed this story, I didn't want to just focus Inari's life around the duo. I want her to develop into her own person before meeting them, and revolve this story more around her characterization and growth and interactions with the canon characters rather than just her love life. I have tons of stuff planned and I'm itching to write about them.**

 **As for Sobo-sama, if you caught onto those minuscule details I can assure you that everything will be explained within time.**

 **For all the fangirls and fanboys who are here for romance, there will be a lot. I promise. Really, really promise. Just not now.**

 **Some more important stuff: The next four chapters are going to be set by building Inari's character, so lots of dysfunctional relationships & whatnot, exposition, Inari slowly developing her nen, & angstangstangst. Lolz, Panda-sama sucks at writing character development and yet the story is chalk-full of it :'). I will assure you though, that frequent cameos of the canon cast will appear in order to balance out the beginning (even Kikyo graces the fic before her actual appearance in the hxh timeline). Also, what do you think about the brothel? There's a bunch of stuff I'm not going to unravel until later chapters, but I do hope the premise of it looks interesting enough, 'specially when I finally get to explain about it in the next chapter.**

 **Additionally, for those confused about Inari's nen, more information on it will be revealed in the next chapter. If any of you really were confused about Inari's pain leave a PM or a review. I'll be happy to answer some questions without fully spoiling everything ;). The same goes for questions, comments, constructive criticism, etc.**

 ***STILL SEARCHING FOR FIC RECS***

 **Reviews:**

 _ **Guest- ahahahahahahaha….Inari's far from alright :0. But thanks man:). Haven't gotten to checking the recs out just yet cuz of school, but some are on my list.**_

 _ **Killugon Fangirl- Thanks :), Inari's a special snowflake.**_

 _ **Colorless Butterfly- Thank youu :3**_

 _ **Guest- Thanks ^_^ expect more emotions and bitterness soon !**_

 _ **Kigamin- Aww, (/) stahhp. I really appreciate that, so thanks. Hope you're still reading this after that long period between updates though lololz. Like guest-san, I wasn't able to get to the fic recs just yet but I'll get there - eventually. . .**_

 _ **havanatitiana-Thank you ^v^ I'll add those fics to my list as well.**_

 _ **downtomars- lolzz, I'm glad you like it.**_

 ****Random facts!**

 **-Panda-sama planned to make this story pairing an OT3 ;)**

 **-The first half of this chapter was a rewrite. Initially, I wrote this really cool beginning where Inari was squaring off against Obi and had some really pretty prose, but that got scrapped because I couldn't find a way to connect it to the chapter's storyline. *sob***

 **-Inari's name was originally supposed to be Hiiragi Matsumoto.**

 **-This chapter was supposed to have a part three, but due to the length of it Panda-sama decided to move it to the next chapter, which will then have four parts { ; _ ; }**

 **Til next time~**


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